


Beginning

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Meet You at the Bar: Seia Shepard x Garrus Vakarian [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Alcohol, Angst, F/M, Normandy SR-1, Romance, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Shepard visits the remains of the Normandy SR-1, the crash site brings up strong emotions.  She knows she can rely on a loyal friend to help her through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginning

 

Garrus stretched, rubbing one hand across his eyes. It was getting late, and he had a headache behind one temple from staring at the numbers on his screen. Calibrations were obnoxious, but in a way he enjoyed them. It was a type of work that could be completed, and he respected that. Not much like tracking down criminals, or searching for a fleeting sense of justice, or stopping a murderous race of highly advanced aliens. Sometimes it was good to lose oneself in something with a beginning and an end.

He heard the whir of the door behind him. He turned, expecting to see the mess officer with some packets of turian food for him. Gardner was good about making sure he remembered to eat, something he was prone to forgetting. Instead it was Shepard, walking in with something tucked under her arms. She looked tired, her hair mussed up in the back, the skin under her eyes dark with little sleep. It always surprised him at how much human faces changed with every mood. They wrinkled, their skin changed colors, and they could mold their faces into an astonishing array of patterns. He was still working on getting all the nuances down but it fascinated him regardless.

"Shepard," he said, surprised. "I thought you'd be asleep by now. What is it?"

"Do you have some time to talk, Garrus?" Shepard asked, tilting her head to one side. Those eyes - piercing, bright - gazed into his, and he averted his gaze, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Their last conversation flashed into his head, and with a squirm of embarrassment he remembered what she had suggested about sparring. She had been joking, hadn't she? Surely she had. He wasn't sure if the idea of it being a joke was a relief, or a disappointment.

"Of course," said Garrus. "I'm always here, if you need anything." He glanced at her folded arms. "What's that you've got there?"

Shepard settled herself down on the bench, laying out what she had brought. Two bottles. Two glasses. "Had a spare bottle of Serrice ice brandy, for me. And... I found some turian brandy, for you. They had a special the last time I was on Omega." She laughed a little, but the sound was tired. "I don't even know if you drink. But I thought I'd ask."

Garrus stepped forward and sat down at the far edge of the bench, the bottles between them. He examined the turian brandy. "This is a good year." He rolled the bottle between his hands, hesitating. "Shepard, is everything all right?"

Shepard grabbed the bottle of ice brandy, and pulled off its lid clumsily. Without looking at him she said, "May I speak freely with you?"

He moved a little closer to her, and held out a cup for her to pour herself a measure. He took the bottle from her hands, set it down, and gave her the cup. He was worried about her now. "Any time. You should know that by now." He popped open the top of the turian brandy, and poured himself a drink as well. He lifted his glass to her. "Cheers."

They clinked glasses, the sound tinny against the bullkheads. She smiled a little, and took a drink, savoring it. "I do know that, really. That's why I came here. Things have been weighing on me."

"The mission?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "Yes and no. The Collectors... they, and the Reapers, are the biggest threat the galaxy will probably ever face. Part of me is appropriately concerned about that, of course. I want to defeat them. And I want to do it right. But that's still in the future, and all that I can think about lately is the past." A muscle in her cheek twitched. Human faces, he thought again.

Garrus took a drink, the strong liquor burning pleasantly in his throat. It made his face tingle. His headache, he was pleased to realize, was gone. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't take you down with me to the Normandy," she said in a rush. "The Alliance only wanted me down there. I tried to argue with them, tell them that you and Tali had been loyal members of my crew and that you deserved to be there too. But they insisted on only me. And I - now that I've been, I wish I hadn't gone."

"You seemed quiet, after you came back," Garrus said softly. "Preoccupied." He'd wanted to go with her down to the wreckage, but had not asked her; he knew that if she had wanted to take him, she would have. He had not realized it had not been an option.

She lifted her glass and drained the rest of it, then held it out to Garrus. He obliged by pouring another, then finished his own.

"It was harder than I thought it would be. Seeing the cockpit, the navigation area, the old weapons lockers. I found Pressley's journal. Remembered how I used to come down and talk with you and Wrex and Ashley. I saw where I --" She drained her second glass abruptly. Her hand was shaking. Garrus was seized with an urge to reach out and steady it, but before he could, she lowered her hand back into her lap. She looked steadily at him. "I saw where it all crumbled around me. Where my suit got hit. Where I --"

"Where you died," Garrus said, his chest aching. He was filled with a confusing mix of emotions. He was angry that Shepard had had to go down there and face that alone. Upset that she was clearly still having a difficult time processing what had happened. And, strangely grateful that she was confiding in him. He looked at her, and saw that her eyes were shiny with tears. He did not resist the urge this time to reach out to her. His hand gently closed over her shoulder, and she leaned into his touch as if he was anchoring her. A thrill went through him. Maybe she hadn't been joking after all.

"Where I died," she echoed. She blinked, and the sheen of tears was gone. Her face was back to being cool, though he doubted that her feelings had followed. "Garrus, most of the crew aboard the Normandy made it to the escape pods. But some of them didn't. They're dead, and they'll stay that way. I should've stayed that way too."

"Shepard, no," Garrus said firmly. "We need you. We all do. Survivor's guilt -- it's normal. You'll get through this, these feelings. No matter what Cerberus wants, they did bring you back. I'm grateful to them for that."

"Survivor's guilt," Shepard said, her voice flat. "That's what they said to me, after Akuze. 'It's normal, Shepard.' 'You can't blame yourself.' 'You didn't do anything wrong.' Well, it felt like I did. I couldn't save them, Garrus, and now I'm back there all over again. Horrors pouring out of the ground, struggling in the darkness, hearing nothing but the screams. And then the silence. No matter where I go, there's destruction waiting."

"Listen to me," Garrus said. He reached out with his other hand to her other shoulder, pulled her about to face him. She bowed her head. "You did what you could. They tell me you went back for Joker and got as many people offboard as possible. Not many commanders could pull that off. Just because some shady organization brought you back doesn't mean that your sacrifice means any less. You're a hero, and I mean that." He was trembling, he realized; a very fine tremor that he hoped she could not feel. He had not been so close to her before. Stop it, he thought; this is your commander, hell, this is a human! But the thought did nothing to quell his shaking hands.

"Sure, I'm a hero," she said, lifting her head. Her face was blotchy now, redness flushing her cheeks. Humiliation, he thought; embarrassment. Or perhaps intoxication. "All my life I've struggled to be my own person, stand out from my parents, make a name for myself. I've done that. But I'm starting to think I don't know who that name belongs to anymore."

"You're Commander Shepard," Garrus said. He pulled his hands away from her, busying them with getting another drink. Maybe that would calm his nerves. He gulped it.

"But who is that person now?" She got to her feet and started pacing, one hand stroking the back of her head compulsively, the other gesturing in front of her. "That person died. I died! And everyone has had a chance to move on with their lives while I'm still here! Two years of my life are gone!" She breathed heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "I'm a stranger to myself, and to everyone who knew me. Anderson doesn't want anything to do with me. Kaidan doesn't trust me. Liara can barely look at me -- I know it must have been hard for her, I can't even imagine! But she's different now. Two years changes a lot, apparently, and I wasn't there for any of it. I thought, naively, that being back meant I could go back to the way things were before. There's a saying on Earth. 'You can't go home again.' I understand it now."

"Maybe you can't go home again. But that doesn't mean you can't move forward. That we can't move forward. You aren't a stranger to me, Shepard," Garrus said. _You can't go home again._ The phrase stirred something in him, and he remembered good men on Omega, the way he'd felt coming back into their base and finding them, all of them, slaughtered. He'd killed the one responsible, but it couldn't possibly make up for what had happened, the families of the men who had trusted him grieving. He shuddered. He knew what she meant.

He stood up. The blood rushed to his head. It had been a while since he'd indulged, and this vintage was apparently rather stronger than what he normallly drank. He shook away the fuzzy feelings in his head, focusing on her. Shepard. He had never thought he could feel so protective of a human, and yet... "Maybe you've changed. Or maybe you haven't changed enough. I can't imagine what this feels like. But you're still Shepard, and that still means something good, something to be proud of."

"Thank you. It feels good, to finally say these things out loud. I haven't been sleeping well. I think I might sleep better tonight." She stopped pacing, and leaned against the railing, exhaling. "Do you want to know why I'm telling you all this? Why I'm not talking to Dr. Chakwas, or the others?"

"Why?"

"Because I feel safe with you." Shepard pushed herself off the railing, stepped closer to him, closer. Only a few inches separated them as she looked up into his face. It was funny, he had scarcely noticed before how much taller he was than she; her presence was so commanding she never seemed to be a small person. But now she was small and slight and here before him, her face open and trusting.

"I'm telling you this because you won't judge me, or lose faith in me." She laughed a little, her pink lips drawing back over white teeth, and for a terrifying moment he wanted to kiss her. Before he could move she said, "And because you'll still respect me in the morning."

"Does that mean we'll be spending the night together?" he asked with a grin before he could stop himself. Her eyes widened, and he wanted to kick himself. What was he doing, saying that to his commanding officer? "Shepard, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have --"

She closed the distance between them. "Come here, Garrus." She did not hesitate, but lifted her arms to wrap him in an embrace. He pulled her closer to him, then, reveling in the newness of her soft warmth against him. Her embrace was well below his shoulder level, and she had to rest her head against his chest, instead of cheek-to-cheek as another turian could do. His long arms felt as if they could wrap around her twice. But he was content. The tremble had returned, now present in his arms as well as legs, but there was a happy, eager feeling he had not felt in a very long time.

"Don't be sorry," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "I was hoping it wasn't just me."

"It isn't," he admitted. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "It's just, I've never had feelings like this for a human before. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right." He chuckled a little. "It sounds silly now."

"Sometimes silly isn't a bad thing," Shepard said, lifting her head from his chest. "Sometimes, it's nice to see you squirm, Vakarian." A wicked smile, one he had never seen before, crossed her face, and his trembling transformed into a very clear and very profound _want_. Before the smile could disappear he bent his neck and pressed his cheek against hers, the turian version of a kiss. Her skin was so _soft_ but not unpleasant, and his heart quickened to hear the gasp that escaped her lips.

"So how do _you_ squirm, Shepard?" Garrus asked, his voice low, almost a growl into her ear.

"I could show you," she whispered. "Then we could decide who has what."

"What do you mean?" he asked, pulling back from the kiss. The wicked smile was back on her face, and it thrilled him more than he could say.

"Who has reach? And who has flexibility?"

He returned the smile. As they walked back up to her quarters, bottles of brandy in hand, he couldn't keep the smile off his face. Sometimes it was good to do something that had a clear beginning and end. Sometimes, it was enough to just have the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this after... attempting to romance Garrus and failing? I mentioned sparring with him but picked the wrong response after that and then we never got off the ground, lol. Then I went and did the Normandy mission and figured this was how I'd like to see things unfold. Then like 10 hours of gameplay later I realized I'd effed it up and went back and started replaying the damn thing. Dammit Garrus! At any rate, I wish Shepard had been able to take teammates down with her to the crash site; it would have been very interesting having Garrus and Tali down there with her.


End file.
